This spring, as part of the Insight to Action programme Refugee Action partnered with Makani Cambridge CIC to deliver Reimagining Wellbeing in the Refugee and Migration Sector, a collective support programme that invited leaders across the sector to slow down, reconnect, and imagine new ways of embedding care into our work.
Emerging in the aftermath of sector-wide exhaustion that followed the violence of August 2024, we recognised that wellbeing cannot be reduced to self-care tips or moments of crisis relief. Instead, Makani Cambridge designed a process that centred on collective care, power-aware practice, and ways of working rooted in dignity and belonging;
“Celebrating our commonalities and respecting our differences. Unlearning the paths that harm our wholeness.” Programme Participant
A Process Rooted in Care, Power Awareness, and Co-Creation
Across seven online sessions, two cohorts - one for people with lived experience of forced displacement and one mixed cohort - came together to explore grounding practices, storytelling, somatic regulation, and collective imagination. These were not conventional workshops. They were relational spaces, intentionally designed to be “safe because they were power-aware, not power-blind.”
Participants were invited to name the different forms of power, privilege and oppression they carry, dissolving distance and nurturing genuine connection. As one participant put it:
“Wellbeing thrives when we stop performing and start belonging to ourselves.”
Another shared the impact of being in such a space:
“I am valued in my heart, in my body, in my home, in my work… What matters is that we are here, together, appreciating this moment.”
What the Sector Needs: Key Insights
Rather than producing another checklist, participants offered a set of shifts the sector needs to make if wellbeing is to be understood as structural, collective, and essential to justice work.
Shift 1: From ‘managing’ wellbeing to making space for it
Leaders and organisations need to build practices of spaciousness into the everyday; pauses, grounding, reflection, and moments of shared presence before the task list begins.
Shift 2: From avoiding power to naming it
True safety emerges not from neutrality, but from honesty. Naming privilege, power, and oppression creates room for trust, connection, and shared humanity.
Shift 3: From rigid structures to inclusive and creative practices
Wellbeing flourishes when people are offered choice; different modes of learning, different ways of expressing themselves, and accessible structures that recognise lived realities.
Shift 4: From one-off wellbeing activities to ongoing rhythms
Reflection, spaciousness, and care need to be woven through supervision, team routines, and leadership practice, not reserved for occasional workshops.
Shift 5: From individual self-care to collective nourishment Participants imagined wellbeing as a garden: diverse, relational, playful. Rest becomes rain; authenticity becomes sunlight; belonging becomes the soil. This is the work of the whole organisation, not the responsibility of individuals alone.
These shifts invite the sector to move from crisis response towards cultures where care, justice, and sustainability are woven into how we work, lead, and relate.
Read the Full Report
You can download the full report, Reimagining Wellbeing in the Refugee and Migration Sector, by clicking the link at the top of the page.
